The Art of Men [I Prefer Mine al Dente]

by Kirstie Alley

  We decided to go home to Kansas for Christmas. I had all these decorated pillows there that I’d made when Bob and I were in college, and a Wichita friend of mine named Carmen had made terrariums. Apparently she was as bored and hard up for some goal in life as I was. She said, “Kirstie—let’s take your pillows and my terrariums and sell ’em at the holiday showcase in Wichita.” Out of storage flew my 150 handmade pillows to be put on the open market, but we needed a BIG vehicle to transport all those pillows and 10 bulky, ugly terrariums.

  Carmen’s husband, Dick, had a friend with a Bronco, so come Saturday morning, along came Jake—a handsome, twinkly-eyed, pseu-docowboy rich guy. He just “got me,” you know? He “understood me,” “appreciated me.” Good ole Jake. I loved his name: “Jake.” He’d never been married, never found true love, and he was just the kind of midwestern bad boy I’d been fantasizing about. The one all the girls in Wichita wanted . . . Jake.

  Why wouldn’t they all want him? He was 27, blue-eyed, with a big smile, cowboy hat, custom boots, and a ripped body. He appeared to be a cowboy who’d just gotten off his horse, scrubbed up, and come to town for dinner. In point of fact, he was a highly educated heir of a prominent oil family in Kansas—the recipient of a hefty trust fund, compliments of his grandfather and Standard Oil of Ohio. Jake—he was so strong and helpful and happy. Attentiveness is and was his most obvious trait. He didn’t have me at “hello,” he had me at “howdy.”

  I sold all of my “before their time” designer pillows and spent Christmas with my husband and our families with visions of this new guy Jake dancing in my head. Bob went back to California to his practice, and I stayed in Kansas for another week. Oddly I found a penchant for the game of backgammon at Dick and Carmen’s parents’ house. The best player? Of course it was Jake. We spent several nights studying that backgammon board, with me doing my best Faye Dunaway impersonations à la The Thomas Crown Affair. I dazzled the cowboy with my coy smiles and my infinite wit, but I left it at flirting. Soon it was time to go back to California and my husband.

  I blocked Jake out of my mind, didn’t talk to him for six months, and that summer Bob suggested we go home for a vacation. I loved his family, especially his mother—she was a role model for me. We swam and did skits, ate the finest food known to man, played games and a lot of bridge, rode horses, and flew around in Dr. Alley’s plane. It was perfect; I loved my husband, and I had since I was 16 years old. All was well.

  Bob had to head back to Cali to work, and I decided to stay another several days to spend more time with my friends. I’d made my decision to be a good girl, and that summer Jake had faded out of my mind.

  Kansas is notorious for tornadoes. They are destructive and devastating, perhaps a prelude to my own life.

  Carmen, Dick, and I were all hanging out at his family’s house—it felt like my second home, a huge College Hill estate in the heart of Wichita. They were a family with five sons, each one hotter than the next. The home was warm and inviting, with animals all around, dogs, cats, and raccoons. Dick’s parents, Don and Maxine Aldritt, were fun—not hipster fun, just warm and adorable. They let their children have full rein. There was always tons of home-cooked food around, and articles by Louis Comfort Tiffany and Maxfield Parrish adorned their house. There was a huge swimming pool with a tall cabana that horrified us girls when the boys dove from it into the pool. This place was what I imagined the Kennedy compound in Hyannisport was like, without the ocean and the Catholics. I remember sitting at the kitchen table while Maxine was making brownies. We were playing backgammon . . . and in walked Jake.

  My heart started pounding like a damn drum. His white shirt so crisp and clean, rolled-up sleeves, revealing his tanned perfect forearms and his understated stainless-steel Rolex. Jake had the most beautiful hands and chest I’d ever seen. I can still envision his tan forearms covered with golden-blond hair. His eyes looked bright blue like my dad’s against his dark skin. Immediately, this girl was gone.

  He told us to turn on the TV, that a tornado was headed toward Wichita. But the combination of our impending doom and the sight of his tan neck against his white cotton shirt made me feel the need to breed.

  About that time, loud crashes of thunder shook the Aldritts’ house. You have to witness a Kansas storm to know its full impact. The wind whipped up and was immense, and the lightening was like a thousand transformers blowing at once. I’ve been terrified of storms my whole life, especially tornadoes. I’d seen Udall, Kansas, flattened to the ground when I was eight. Tornadoes are vicious and unpredictable.

  I snapped out of my crush coma, and true fear set in. But a moment later I had the insane thought, Oh my god, it’s Jake. I need to brush my teeth so that I have fresh breath when I flirt with him before we die in a twister.

  While he was in the living room messing with the TV I seized the moment. Oh my god, I probably have brownies in my teeth. I scrambled in my purse for a toothbrush and ran across the kitchen to the sink. Under the cabinet was a tube of toothpaste. I began brushing wildly.

  Oh my god.

  I can’t have brownies in my teeth!

  I can’t let Jake see brownies in my teeth!

  Jake can’t see me brushing my teeth!!!

  Oh my god, he looks so flippin’ handsome!!!!!

  I scrubbed my teeth double-good in case I wanted to whisper anything to him. Brush brush brush!! Suddenly, my mouth began to burn. No, really on fire burn. What the hell!??! My freaking escalated into a frenzy. I grabbed the tube of toothpaste—OH MY GOD!! It wasn’t toothpaste at all!! It was Bengay!! Seriously? I’d brushed my teeth with an analgesic heat rub used to relieve muscles and joint pain?! Fuck!! My mouth was on fire!! And my lips were crimson!

  I was rinsing my mouth with cold water like a fool as fast as I could as Jake walked toward me.

  I burst out laughing, probably drooling like a dog as I offered up the Bengay and toothbrush. He burst out laughing, and there we were, crying as the house was preparing to implode.

  All senses were heightened: fear of the tornado; lust for the cowboy; burning Bengay mouth. And that was just the beginning.

  The storm alert had turned into a full-blown tornado warning, and in Kansas that means air-raid sirens blaring and TV storm trackers shitting their pants trying to act calm.

  “Get in the basement!!!” Mr. Aldritt yelled. The noise of the storm was deafening. All the Aldritt boys were sitting on their asses, listening to Stevie Nicks.

  “Get in the damn basement!!!” Mr. Aldritt shouted. You didn’t have to tell me twice, I was scared shitless. I ran for the stairs!

  “I’m getting the raccoons!” hollered Mike Aldritt.

  “Forget the fucking raccoons,” Jim Aldritt bellowed.

  “I’m not coming in the basement without the fucking raccoons,” Mike protested.

  “Bring the damn raccoons,” Mr. Aldritt conceded.

  “What about the dogs?!” Mike pleaded. “And the cats?”

  “Okay, everybody grab a fucking animal and get down the damn stairs now!” Dick screamed at his brothers.

  This gave me ample time to situate myself in the basement underneath the staircase and snuggle up against Jake. I was half freaking out for real and half feigning a starlet-movie freak-out. If I had spoken, which I didn’t, I would have said, “Rhett, don’t let me die in a cyclone . . . Rhett, I need you, I love you, this is a sign from God. Oh, Rhett, protect me from the dreadful storm!” And Rhett would have said, “Frankly Scarlett, I DO give a damn!! There is never tomorrow, only today . . . and there’s no place like home.” The frenzy was so vast that even Rhett had gotten his movie lines mashed together, but I didn’t care, I just didn’t care!!!!

  No dialogue was needed in this scene. This performance began my acting career and would have won me an Oscar if cameras had been rolling. I was clutching Jake, who was wrapped around me like a tortilla on a burrito. There were raccoons flipping out, dogs barking, cats hissing, five brothers laughing, Carmen telling them to shut u
p, Don and Maxine wondering why they had so many kids, the wind droning like a train . . . and then, as quickly as it had come, it went. Dead calm.

  It was nothing new to any of us Kansans—just another night in ITA (Wichita), the Air Capital of the World.

  Noah’s ark, family, and friends danced up the basement steps to the kitchen. When a tornado doesn’t actually kill you, you suddenly feel like the Berlin Wall just came down: exhilarated. Fleetwood Mac was blasting from the living room—“you can go your own waaaaaay”—and that’s exactly what Jake and I did.

  “Storm’s over, let’s go out by the pool to smoke a cigarette,” he said. There were those tan hands. There was that crisp white cotton shirt. There were those stick matches that Jake was striking on the zipper of his Levi’s jeans. He was holding the flame up to my smoke, and lordy lordy, it was all too much. I delayed a beat to let him light my cigarette, and the match went out. He leaned forward and kissed me hard on the mouth, and it was probably the most perfect, memorable kiss of my life. The “forbidden” kiss—and then it hit me: I’ve kissed someone. I’m a married woman and I’ve kissed someone.

  The next day I did more. As Jake lay on top of me for most of that Sunday afternoon, making out like teenagers after the prom, I thought, Oh well, at least we didn’t have sex. We just parked our bodies face-to-face—and smooshed. Okay, okay, that’s not horribly horribly bad . . .

  But as I got on the plane to leave Wichita the next day, I thought . . . I am a whore . . . My mother was right. She raised a whore. It left me but one choice—I had to get a divorce—which I did.

  I took nothing; I was the bad one after all. To this day I cannot believe what a cold, callous, heartless ass I was to my husband. I didn’t just break his heart, I thrust my hand into his aorta and ripped it from his chest, something I’ve punished myself for a thousand times over, and something I’ve regretted my entire life.

  All of my justifications came floating to the top: Well, he cheated on ME and didn’t admit it until the day after we were married. Well, well, well, well, well . . .

  It never really works to cause immense pain to another and then justify your actions. However, I didn’t learn that till much later in life . . . much later.

  I became insane with long intervals of sanity.

  —EDGAR ALLAN POE

  The Art of

  Wallpapering

  IF EVER there was a man who deserved the title of saint, it was Dean White. Not to imply he’s dead now; he’s very much alive and very much a part of my life.

  When I moved in with Jake, before I was officially divorced, he suggested I decorate our duplex. Jake had money and I had talent. We made an appointment with Dean’s Designs, a fashionable interior design firm in Wichita. Jake and I were new in our relationship and were on the wavelength of newlyweds, although we were just shacking up.

  Dean—“Deano” as his children call him—was the top man (owner). We made the appointment, and it was love at first sight.

  Dean was a terrific guy, one of the most naturally funny people I’ve met. He showed us all the design books that met the description of what we wanted. I chose this and that fabric. Those pieces of furniture, carpeting, and lamps. I was having so much fun with Dean and Jake, just designing away.

  Although I studied interior design in art school when I was a teenager, I was far from a pro. I only knew I had a knack for it and loved designing. At the end of our decorating sessions, about three weeks after our first encounter, Deano said, “You’re really good at this! You want a job?” I thought he was kidding but, yes, I did want a job as an interior designer.

  I said, “I’m not trained, you know.”

  He said, “Who cares? You’re good and I’ll train you in the bullshit of all of it.” We laughed, I said yes, and Monday morning I showed up for work as one of Deano’s new interior designers.

  Of course I’d never ordered anything in my life. I had no knowledge about purchase orders or working with clients of legit interior design firms. Dean’s wife, Joyce, thought I was a lunatic and thought Deano was probably loony for hiring me, and she was right on both counts. What Dean and Joyce didn’t know was that I had a budding cocaine habit.

  Deano and his secretary, Betty, set up a section of his large store as my “design office.” It was small, but wow, how did an idiot like me land this primo job in the first place? Dean immediately got me clients. It was crazy! I’d meet them at their homes and ask what they liked and tell them what I thought would be “lovely.” Then I’d go back in the store where Betty would help me order everything.

  This was all going swimmingly, and I had five clients within a month. Joyce was not as suspect of my lunacy as she’d been the month before, and Dean was getting rave reports from my clients.

  Then Dean gave me a client named Paul. Paul was a well-known, wealthy businessman who owned an enormous plumbing-supply store. When I first met Paul, I thought he was gay. When I next met with Paul, I knew he was a raging middle-aged cocaine addict. Paul remains on my top-ten-weirdest-people-I’ve-ever-known list. How he ran the biggest wholesale plumbing-supply house in Kansas, I’ll never know.

  After meeting Paul I told Dean, “Paul is a total freak.” Dean replied that he already knew that and that I was the only one who could handle him. Why Dean? Because I’m notorious for handling freaks? I thought. Anyway, it was work and it was a client and he was rich and on good days he was coherent.

  One day while I was having the drapery woman hang drapes in Paul’s bedroom, he took me aside, way aside, into his garage where he kept his Bentley and his Benz.

  “You’re doing a great job on the house, Kirst.” Sweet Jesus, what a red flag it is when people call me Kirst. It culls them from the normal folk instantly. “You’re doing such a great job, Kirst, that I got you a little gift.” He handed me a crystal Art Nouveau box with an enamel lid. The box was double the size of a cigarette pack. It was stunning, and I’m sure it was the real thing, an antique.

  He said, “Go ahead and open it. What’s inside is even prettier.” So I opened it. Probably five ounces of cocaine filled the lovely box to the brim. “I just had it flown in from California,” he said. “Do you like cocaine? Have you ever tried cocaine?”

  And here’s where I broke my professional bond with Paul. “I’ve tried it a couple of times. It’s sorta fun.” I blushed. Jeez! I’d never seen five ounces of California cocaine! I bought my stash by the gram in little folded papers. “Thank you, Paul, would you like to do a bit with me?” I knew cocaine wasn’t called “bits,” it was called lines, rails, bumps, blow, etc.

  “Yes,” cunning Paul said, “let’s do a ‘bit.’ ” We snorted a quarter of the Art Nouveau box—enough to kill us both twice.

  The drapery lady finished up six hours before we were done. Paul ended up offering to have me design a yacht and his showroom by the time I left, but he never tried hitting on me or approaching me for sex. Although he said he wasn’t gay—he claimed he had sex with hookers—he was definitely a very twisted gay man. He also liked to seduce fairly innocent girls with drugs.

  Another time the wallpaper guy didn’t show up at Paul’s house to wallpaper the kitchen. My friend Lucy and I were loaded when I got the call, both high as kites, and we went over to Paul’s to assess the situation. Now, I had wallpapered rooms when Bob and I were married and were living in the house we shared briefly in Redondo Beach, California. After assessing Paul’s kitchen, I decided it was a good idea that Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds and I do the job ourselves.

  “Hell, Lucy, we don’t need to take down the old paper! Let’s just hang on top of it.” This sounded like a champion idea to Lucy as she dipped her little fingernail into a ziplock bag of cocaine.

  This was supereasy wallpaper to hang. We didn’t even have to use wallpaper paste; it was prepasted. All we had to do was run the paper through water and hang it. Lucy and I went out and got all the right tools, brushes, sponges, straight-edged razors, and such. We snorted a few long lines of
coke off the kitchen table, and we were ready to go. I’m a Kansas girl, a jack-of-all-trades, and that’s how we roll in Wichita.

  Lucy pulled the paper through the water, and I hung it. Strip after strip we went. The cocaine added to the speed of the hanging. It only took about three hours. Hell, we were done by noon.

  We grabbed ourselves a Diet Coke and sat down at the kitchen table to go about the business of a “job well done” coke-snorting frenzy. About 15 minutes into the coke-a-thon I noticed the paper behind the refrigerator had begun rolling down from the ceiling.

  “We gotta glue that down up there. Damn preglued paper!” As I was Elmer-gluing the strip back up I heard a ripping sound, like the sound of tape being torn from a dispenser. Piece by piece the wallpaper began rolling from the top by the ceiling and peeling down until it lay on the kitchen floor. It was as astonishing as it was horrifying.

  Two things occur when you’re high on blow. Everything is hysterical and everything makes you paranoid, usually in that order. Uncontrollable laughter could have been heard from Paul’s kitchen for upwards of an hour, followed by a paranoia rivaled only by a serial killer surrounded by the FBI.

  We—I—had hung the prepasted paper over vinyl paper. It was ruined. This was a conundrum. It would take four weeks for the new paper to get to Kansas, and it was expensive. Paul could easily come home at any minute in a coke rage. Our hearts were pounding. We could see Paul driving into the garage. We were terrified.

  Paul walked in and said, “What’s up, ladies?” I blurted out how stupid I was and what I had done. I waited for the explosion to ensue . . .

  “Got any coke?” he calmly asked.

  “Yeah, we have a lot of coke.”

  Then . . .

  “Let’s do some blow!” he cheerfully decreed. He could have cared less, and he never reported me to Dean. He just had me order more paper, which he insisted on paying for.